By Stella Qiu
SYDNEY (Reuters) -Asian shares were mixed on Wednesday, wary in case the Federal Reserve flags a slower path of rate cuts later in the day, while the yen plumbed four-month lows on expectations that policy in Japan will be accommodative for a while longer.
European markets are set to open lower, with EUROSTOXX 50 futures down 0.4% and FTSE futures 0.1% lower. Both U.S. futures were off 0.1%.
Tokyo’s Nikkei is closed for a holiday in Japan, but the yen’s weakness lifted Nikkei futures 0.4% higher, a day after the Bank of Japan ended years of negative interest rates in a well-telegraphed move.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan edged up 0.1%. Taiwanese shares fell 0.6% while South Korean shares jumped 1.2%, driven by a 5.6% surge in Samsung Electronics.
Nvidia said it was qualifying the South Korean chipmaker’s high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips.
Chinese shares also rose slightly. The Shanghai Composite index gained 0.5%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index crept 0.2% higher.
China’s central bank left its benchmark lending rates unchanged on Wednesday, as widely expected.
The dollar gained 0.4% to 151.51 yen, a fresh four-month high, and moved closer to the 152 level that prompted Japanese authorities to intervene to stem the currency’s slide in late 2022. It slumped about 1.1% overnight.
While Japan’s historic shift away from negative interest rates and massive stimulus ushered in a new era of economic policy for the nation, analysts expect the BOJ’s monetary normalisation to proceed at a glacial pace. That has meant an extended lifespan for the popular carry trades where investors borrow yen to buy higher yielding currencies.
“On currencies, it is clear that the BOJ tightening has done nothing to shake a belief in carry,” said Alan Ruskin, global head of G10 FX strategy at Deutsche Bank.
Analysts at ING also trimmed year-end forecast for the yen to 140 per dollar, from 130 per dollar before.
With BOJ out of the way, focus is now on the Federal Reserve policy meeting outcome later in the day where the risk is the new economic projections – the dot plot – could signal just two interest rate cuts, down from three, or a later start to the policy easing.
Ruskin expects the dot plot and the message from Fed Chair Jerome Powell at the post-meeting press conference to err on the slightly hawkish side, which would be positive for the U.S. dollar.
“It is doubtful that Powell will do anything to dent U.S. led risk sufficiently to warrant a rethink on carry that has centred on short yen, versus long high yielding Latam.”
Markets have pushed back the timing for the first Fed cut to June, and maybe even July, due to recent data showing inflation has remained sticky.
A slew of European Central Bank officials including Christine Lagarde will be speaking later in the day. Some officials have endorsed June as the likely month to start discussing ECB rate cuts.
In the foreign exchange market, the euro and the Australian dollar gained new ground on the yen. The euro hit 164.66 yen, the highest since 2008, while the Aussie fetched 98.90 yen, just a notch below a nine-year high.
Cash Treasuries market is closed due to the holiday in Japan but futures were mostly steady.
Oil prices retreated from multi-month highs on a strong dollar. Brent eased 0.2% to $87.18 a barrel, while U.S. crude lost 0.3% to $83.21 per barrel.
Gold prices were steady at $2,157.32 per ounce, some distance away from the record high of $2,194.99 hit this month.
(Reporting by Stella Qiu; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Himani Sarkar)
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